Budget a missed opportunity to fix Alberta’s finances

Mar 26, 2015

Parkland Institute

Edmonton - The 2015/16 provincial budget tabled this afternoon by Finance Minister Robin Campbell is a missed opportunity to make the structural changes necessary to stabilize provincial revenues and equitably wean the province off its overdependence on resource revenue, according to the Parkland Institute.

“Rather than deliver the historic budget Premier Prentice been promising for weeks, the budget we see today does precious little to put Alberta on firm fiscal footing,” says Parkland Director Trevor Harrison. “Minor tweaks to the income tax regime for the highest income earners will have negligible impacts on Alberta’s long-term fiscal picture, and will leave Albertans on the rollercoaster of oil prices for years to come.”

“It’s simply irresponsible to drain the provincial savings account and make hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to critical public services while leaving corporate taxes untouched and not even considering adjusting the revenue Albertans get for their natural resources,” says Parkland Executive Director Ricardo Acuña. “Quite simply, this budget is a missed opportunity.”

A report released in early March by the Parkland Institute found that reinstating graduated personal and corporate income tax rates to pre-2000 levels would bring in $6.4 billion in additional revenue, and other changes to corporate tax credits would generate an additional $2.2 billion for the province. The report is available here.

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Parkland Director Trevor Harrison will be available for interviews in the Legislature rotunda immediately following the budget speech.

Parkland Executive Director Ricardo Acuña is available for phone interviews.

Parkland Institute is an Alberta-wide, non-partisan research centre situated within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. Parkland Institute studies economic, social, cultural, and political issues facing Albertans and Canadians, using the perspective of political economy. more »